Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism

The Tow-Knight Center serves as a catalyst for journalism innovation and sustainability by running education programs, events, and communities.

Since 2010, our Entrepreneurial Journalism programs have helped more than 130 aspiring journalism entrepreneurs from around the world develop new media ventures, including Narrative.ly, Skillcrush, NK News, and How India Lives.

We launched the $14 million News Integrity Initiative to advance news literacy and increase trust in journalism with Facebook, the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, the Ford Foundation, and other funders.

Through our Communities of Practice program, Tow-Knight helps journalists and journalism educators share resources and develop expertise in emerging roles such as news product and audience development. We also conduct research and convene events to support collaboration among media leaders and a sustainable future for news.

The Center was established with generous support from The Tow Foundation and the Knight Foundation.

M.A. in Social Journalism

Social journalism is all about finding new ways to serve communities. Our Social Journalism M.A. students focus on the skills that are crucial for journalism today: engagement, social video, audience growth, social newsgathering and verification, data, analytics, social media tools, design thinking, product development, and more.

Communities of Practice

Tow-Knight supports ongoing professional communities of practice for the new disciplines that are key to journalism’s future. We’ve seen from our own experience that one-off events and reports can accomplish only so much. From our contacts in the industry and research we conducted on the skills needed by news companies today, we seen that many new job titles have emerged — among them, product development, audience development, social media management, live video production, virtual reality production and internationalization. Tow-Knight works with journalists and researchers to produce research reports that share best practices and news industry surveys.

News Integrity Initiative

The News Integrity Initiative supports efforts to connect journalists, technologists, academic institutions, non-profits, and other organizations from around the world to foster informed and engaged communities; combat media manipulation; and promote inclusive, constructive, and respectful civic discourse. The NII was seeded with $14 million in grants from a coalition of partners, which include Facebook, Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, Ford Foundation, AppNexus, Knight Foundation, Tow Foundation, Betaworks, Mozilla, and Democracy Fund.

Watch

Fellows share their experiences developing startup ventures at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

Social Journalism should be about providing a service, said program director Carrie Brown. It is first and foremost about listening, whether communities are brought together by geography or shared interests.